They Would Learn to Smile
by Hells True Mistress
Summary: Just a short, pointless little fic. Takes place some time after a failed Third Impact. Shinji tries to reach out to Asuka. No actual pairing just some brokenness.


"You could be happy, you - more than anyone else - deserve to be happy, but you're to scared. Scared that if you start caring about something... you'll loose it, loose every thing, all over again..." He stopped speaking and just stood there with this sad look in his eyes. It made me want to kick him.

I wanted to shout at him for calling me scared, for implying that I'm weak; I wanted to punch him and feel my fists braking bone, as if violence could prove me right. As if pain could make him wrong.

"If you have nothing you care about," he spoke on and I meat his gaze refusing to show how cracked my armor of transparent arrogance had become. " nothing that you would fight to keep, then why are you so desperate to live."

Once again, I wanted to be angry, defiant, but once again, his words struck true and cut deep. "Get out." I point to my door barely managing to keep my crumbling mask in place.

"Get out!" I hissed failing to keep my voice from shaking.

" **Get OUT!** " I roared loosing what little remained of my composure. I grabbed the nearest object and hurl it at him - a calm, numb part of my flooded, fogged mind noted how the lamp shattered against my desk, rather pathetically missing its supposed target. But Shinji made no move to leave, instead he moved forward as i collapsed to my knees.

Her Knees connect painfully with the ground, but if she even noticed the pain she ignored it. She sagged forward her shoulders heavy with defeat, her arms hung limply from her sides and her red bangs shrouded her face.

As he drew closer he carefully lay his hand on her trembling shoulder, feeling her flinch at the contact.

"How dare you." it was no more than a whisper, possibly not even directed at him, but he heard it non the less.

"How dare you say that to me." her voice was louder this time.

"How dare _you_ say that to _me_." her shoulders shook, almost as if in emphasis, he crouched down to eye level he and saw the tears that fell from her still concealed face as they made there journey to the wooden floorboards.

"After ever thing I've been through." Her fist shot up and connected solidly with his jaw.

"After everything I've survived!" he staggered back and she rose to her feet.

"I have bled and i have lost far more than you, Third Child!" Spiting his old 'nick name' she tore the eye patch from her face clutching it tightly in her left hand. She would have preferred to use the other but her right arm hung uselessly at her side, as always.

"I know what it's like to be in so much pain that death seems a far-off prayer." she wasn't shouting, she couldn't shout, her scar-tissue lungs were burning too much and breathing was too hard.

"I know what it's like to be so detached, so... soulless," it was the only word that came close to describing the emptiness she had felt "that the threat of that same pain means nothing."

"But I an still here." there was something terrifying and beautiful about her as she loomed over him tears streaming down her face, breathing labored. She was so very alive; so **real**.

"Exactly." he wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his hand.

"What?.." her rage wavered slightly under the weight of sudden confusion.

"Exactly." he rose to his feet and she glared daggers at him, her unseeing eye just as harsh as its deep blue counterpart "You're still here, and there are people who... who care about you. I... I can't promise that they... that I will be here forever, but I'm here now..."

A pregnant silence filled the room until "Please Asuka... I just want to see you smile."

Again silence, as she regarded him coldly. Minutes passed before the hostility fell from her stance, she turned her back on him and slowly, carefully fixed her military issue eye patch back in place. " I'm not sure remember how..."

Shinji reached out placing his hand on Asuka's shoulder, he did no pull away when she flinched.

"It's okay," she could hear the tears in his voice "we'll learn together."

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 **Any and all feedback welcome.**


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